


Under Construction

by everyl1ttleth1ng



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Meet-Cute, Simmons doesn't teach Science for a change - outrage!, Site Engineer/Teacher AU, as in soccer, inevitable inappropriate use of construction-related terminology, may contain traces of football, not writing in the US so apologies if teaching terminology does not connect with what you know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-08 07:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17977052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyl1ttleth1ng/pseuds/everyl1ttleth1ng
Summary: Leo Fitz is the site engineer overseeing the construction of a new school library. The principal warns Fitz about the possibility of attraction developing between members of the crew and senior students. Obviously that’s a clear no-no. The crew are duly cautioned. However, it never seems to occur to anyone to warn Fitz about attraction developing between himself and a lovely member of the high school teaching staff…Yes, apparently this time everyl1ttleth1ng is writing a Site Engineer/Teacher Meet Cute. *rolls eyes*





	1. Chapter 1

Leo Fitz had been a site engineer long enough to be extremely well acquainted with the visual oddities of construction sites. Long expanses of exposed hairy legs, constant helmet hair, glaring high-vis and unsightly, fading anchor tattoos were the most enduring elements one noticed, closely followed by the perennial layer of dust that settled on absolutely every surface (and in absolutely every orifice).

 

He’d overseen hospital wing extensions, bridge constructions, stadium edifices and supervised the erection of city skyscrapers, airport control towers, town halls and fancy homes so he was excited to add a new architectural feather to his hard hat, comparatively lowly though it might have seemed to others – a new school library.

 

What Fitz hadn’t thought to consider was the challenge posed by the periods of time known in the education industry as “recess” and “lunch”. He was taken aside by the kindly principal, Phil Coulson, in their initial meetings and asked to caution his workers extremely firmly about not having any contact whatsoever with students. Apparently in a prior building project some older high school girls had begun flirtations with some of the younger, more attractive construction workers to difficult and unsafe ends. Fitz nodded sagely through the meeting, entirely able to see the dangers inherent in such a theoretical dalliance being allowed.

 

But in practice, Fitz learned that recess and lunch posed additional problems that neither he nor the principal had anticipated. Together with the students tumbling haphazardly out into the playground came a wide array of teachers on playground duty. The first day or two this was merely a matter of mild interest.

 

On Monday morning, an older gentleman he heard the kids calling Mr Gonzales strode around the edge of the construction site swinging his arms as if to kick-start his circulation and watching the foundations go down with considerably more interest than that with which he supervised his young charges. By lunch time a woman called Ms Weaver in an oversized straw hat balanced her thermos of soup on a tree stump while helping a student with his physics difficulties. They were curious characters to observe for a moment but Fitz paid them no more heed than he would the extras in the very background of a film he was watching.

 

On Tuesday morning, a younger male teacher he heard called Mr Von Strucker jogged out to play football with the kids on the oval. Fitz vaguely wondered if this counted as actual supervision and turned back to the task at hand. But it was on Tuesday lunch time that the trouble began.

 

The jack hammers were momentarily silent when he first heard the musical laugh that compelled him to turn and look. Through the chain link fence that separated the construction zone from the playground stood easily the most beautiful woman Fitz had ever seen in his life. Her chocolate brown hair fell in soft waves around her shoulders, her hazel eyes sparkled in the sunlight and she was laughing at a story being eagerly relayed to her by a gaggle of tall girls while she sipped occasionally from a large tea cup.

 

“I don’t even know the song you’re talking about,” he heard her say, appreciating the self-deprecating humour in her voice. “I started listening to news radio the moment I turned thirty. Something in you just snaps and you can’t stand Top 40 music anymore. You wait!”

 

As he watched, and the girls around her laughed, her attention was captured by a small boy who came up to her in tears.

 

“Miss Simmons,” the boy was sobbing and pointing into the site, “I know you’re not a primary teacher but Justin threw my hat over the fence and I can’t get it because Mr Coulson says students aren’t allowed to talk to the builders and that even if we do, they’re not allowed to answer us.”

 

“Alright, Henry,” Fitz heard her say soothingly. “Don’t cry. I’ll tell Mr Mace about Justin and I’m sure I can help you get your hat back. _You_ might not be allowed to talk to the builders but I’m sure they’ll be happy to talk to me.”

 

Fitz sighed internally as he watched her turn towards him, her eyebrows raised hopefully. He would never have been in any danger from a high school girl. He remembered enough about them from his own youth. A beautiful teacher who was funny and kind and whom he’d heard admit to being over thirty - from her his heart would not be quite so safe.

 

“Sir,” she called across to him. “I wonder if you might be able to help me with something.”

 

“Certainly,” he replied crisply, trying to remain aloof and business like. “What can I do for you?”

 

“I’m Jemma Simmons,” she said, smiling ever so sweetly. “And my small friend Henry here seems to have lost his hat in your building site. I don’t suppose you might be able to fetch it for him?”

 

Fitz felt his face break out in a friendly grin the like of which he’d intended to keep strictly on the inside. “No trouble at all,” he replied, internally kicking himself for how eager he sounded. He turned to fetch the hat and noticed his entire crew had stopped to watch him relate to this beautiful woman, naked amusement on all of their faces.

 

He couldn’t shout at them to get back to work while the lovely creature watched on so he simply and somewhat uncharacteristically nodded in their direction with a friendly, “Lads,” as he went after the hat and stooped to pick it up.

 

Just as he straightened up he caught sight of Ward, bored by the show of his boss flirting, bending over to retrieve something from the ground. Under the leg holes of his short builders’ shorts, Ward revealed a considerable amount of the whites of his underpants beneath. The sight hit Fitz with the mortifying realisation that he himself must have just shown a similar view of his own scarlet red Manchester United underpants to not only the little crying boy but also the gaggle of teenage girls _and_ , worst of all, the beautiful teacher. He would never let himself wear shorts to work again. At last he’d be rid of that unsightly tan line.

 

When he finally forced himself to turn and face them, the teenage girls all had their heads together giggling madly but the little boy was entirely consumed by the prospect of being reunited with his hat.

 

Seeking the teacher’s gaze was his final challenge. She had blushed beet-red, not unlike the colour of his pants, and was fanning at her face with the papers she carried under one arm.

 

The chain link fence was so elevated that he had to come right up to it and hold the boy’s hat high above his head in order to return it. Correspondingly, Miss Simmons had to press herself up against the fence from the other side in order to be able to reach high enough to take it from him. Should he have frisbeed it over? Would that have been the more professional choice? How on earth could one anticipate these sorts of workplace challenges in advance?

 

There was Fitz, an audience on both sides, the whole length of his body pressed up against the whole length of the beautiful teacher while this uncoordinated hat exchange took place. It was simultaneously stimulating and humiliating.

 

When she’d grasped the hat firmly enough to retrieve it from him, she lowered herself from her tiptoes to solid ground and he felt the heat of her body melt away from him.

 

The little boy, tears drying on his cheeks, thanked Miss Simmons and then thanked Fitz and skipped away, the teenage girls had been summoned by the sound of the bell and it was suddenly just the two of them still standing unreasonably close together, the metal fence the only barrier between them.

 

“Thank you, err, Mr…?” she stammered.

 

“Fitz,” he replied. “Just Fitz.”

 

She smiled, tucking her papers under the arm that held her tea and nervously smoothing down her skirt over her legs with her other hand. “Well, thank you, Fitz,” she said, smiling. “You saved the day.”

 

“Any time,” he replied, smiling back at her in a way that he hoped wasn’t too goofy. He seemed compelled to watch as she walked away but at least it postponed the moment he had to turn and face the inevitable smirks and comments of his crew. The guys were never going to let him hear the end of it.


	2. Chapter 2

On Wednesday morning, Fitz heard the lilt of her lovely voice again as she led a class of teenagers through the playground for some sort of writing activity on the oval. He was thankful for his long trousers even if he was feeling a bit warm and perhaps he might have maneuvered himself ever so slightly closer to the fence line as the lads alleged _ad nauseum_ for the rest of the day.

 

It was worth it though. He looked up to see her beaming at him through the fence, her long skirt flowing around her legs in the breeze.

 

“Good morning, Mr Fitz,” she said warmly as she passed him by.

 

Without any other recourse, he found himself returning a cheery “Good morning, Miss Simmons,” and doffing his hard hat like some sort of Dickensian urchin. He waited until she was out of sight before he let his shoulders slump in self-loathing. Ward and the others merely snickered at him.

 

On Thursday afternoon, there she was again. He was learning that teachers seemed to spend all day with kids and never even got a chance to eat their lunch in peace. Her hair was tied back in an easy ponytail, she wore sunglasses, cropped pants, sneakers and a simple t-shirt and stood in the sunlight with a navy jumper tied around her waist eating an apple with impossible grace. If someone were compiling a “Healthy Lifestyle” booklet, they’d put her on the cover no question.

 

Fitz thought of the styrofoam cup of noodles he planned to fill with boiling water when his break came around. At least there were little dehydrated cubes of bright green and orange vegetables floating around the bottom. Or he _hoped_ they were vegetables.

 

She found a vantage point from which she could see the kids on the oval and the kids in the playground and lent back against one of the poles supporting the construction site fence. Now all Fitz needed was an excuse to go and work in that slightly more remote corner of the site. He bundled a few bricks into a wheelbarrow and trundled it over, hoping inspiration would strike him and that being-an-idiot would momentarily leave him.

 

“Hi, Jemma,” he said casually, lowering the wheelbarrow and remembering that there was nothing convincing he could possibly do in that spot with the scant materials he’d made available to himself.

 

It didn’t matter at all when she turned to face him with a broad smile and pushed her sunglasses back onto her head so he could see her hazel eyes. “Hi, Fitz,” she replied. “How’s life on the site?”

 

He laughed. “Pretty easy compared to what I see you teachers doing all day. You never get a rest! I have no idea how any of you survive it!”

 

It was quickly apparent that he could not have said anything that would have touched her more deeply. Her hand went to her heart. “Thank you _so much_ for saying that,” she replied sincerely, turning back to watch the students in her care while she spoke. “I feel like so many people in the world think teachers do nothing but take holidays and leave work at three.”

 

“Not me!” he replied, warming to his topic now that he could see how much it meant to her. “We’re all out of here long before any of you leave and most of you arrive about the same time. And you’re here eating your lunch while watching the students. Don’t they ever give you a break?”

 

She sighed. “Oh, Fitz, it would be so cathartic to bore you with the full list of what I just had to achieve in my free period, not that I remotely managed to get it all done, but then you wouldn’t come over and talk to me ever again and that would be a shame.”

 

Fitz let his brain buzz pleasantly around the implications of her words. “I’d still come and talk to you,” he assured her.

 

“Let’s not test that right now,” she replied sadly. “If I let _myself_ think about that list I might not be able to bring myself to walk back in there when the bell goes.”

 

“What about when you’re not at work?” Fitz asked. “Do you get to take a proper break then?”

 

She shrugged. “I have never once felt that my work as a teacher is finished. There are always lessons to prep, papers to mark, incidents to make a record of, parents to ring, excursions to plan, professional development to organise… I’ll admit, I’m not very good at taking time out for myself but-”

 

“What would you do this weekend,” Fitz interrupted, “If you could do absolutely anything you wanted and you had no school work hanging over your head?”

 

She turned back to look at him, lifting her sunglasses off her face so he could see her eyes again. They were staring searchingly into his. What was she about to say? It felt potentially momentous…

 

“ _Miiiiiisss Siiiiimoooooonnnns!!!_ ”

 

The sudden yelling of her name from the oval immediately severed the connection between them and Jemma snapped into action, running to the source of the sound.

 

Fitz could see a boy, about twelve, collapsed in the middle of the field clearly having an epileptic fit. He felt helpless. Should he see if he could assist? He watched, torn, as Jemma cleared the watching kids a distance from the fitting boy, clearly commanded two students to run to the office and alert the nurse, whipped her jumper from around her waist, placed it under his head and gently helped him on to his side.

 

Well, it was clear that she did not require his help. He turned back to his own work to see the crew smirking at him again. Hunter was shaking his head. Falling in love with a girl in front of his crew was the absolute pits.

 

She popped by the site quickly on her way to an after-school staff meeting and, now that the students had gone home, felt free to beckon him over which he knew he’d pay for with a mountain of good-natured ribbing later on.

 

“I’m so sorry about earlier, Fitz,” she said. “I sort of ran out on our conversation.”

 

He laughed. “No need to apologise to me, Jemma! Duty called and you were amazing. You knew exactly what to do. I was impressed.”

 

Jemma beamed at him. “Of course, we’d all prefer to keep our First Aid training purely in the realm of the theoretical but occasionally Barney has seizures at school and it’s nice to feel confident that I know what to do to make sure he’s ok.”

 

“Well, after what I saw today, you’d be the one I’d want with me if I ever needed firs…” Fitz began, trailing off when he realised it might sound like he was about to make a pathetic mouth-to-mouth joke.

 

“No, no!” Jemma laughed. “Don’t you go having an accident, Fitz. Nothing we get taught in teacher first aid prepares us to deal with angle grinder incidents or anything like that. Bleeding nose, I’ve got you. Band-Aids, you’re set. Severed limb, I’ll be the one on the ground unconscious.”

 

“We all have our limits,” Fitz chuckled. “I’ll do my best to make sure all our limbs remain attached.”

 

“Appreciated.” Jemma looked torn as if she wanted to stay and chat but knew she was supposed to be elsewhere.

 

He thought about asking that question again, the one about what she’d do on the weekend if she had total freedom.

 

“Well…" she said, turning to go. "I guess I’ll see you on my next playground duty?”

 

The moment lost, Fitz shrugged, internally kicking himself. “I’ll be here.”


	3. Chapter 3

On Friday, Fitz pulled into the school early in the morning just in time to see Jemma wrestling some large cardboard boxes out of her car boot. He seized his opportunity, parked his truck a bit haphazardly and rushed over.

 

“Jemma, hi!” he called as he approached, so as not to startle her by sneaking up on her.

 

She turned, clearly surprised to see him at first, but then that smile broke out across her face. “Hi, Fitz,” she replied. “Who let you out of your cage?”

 

He must have looked extremely confused.

 

“This is the first time I’ve seen you without a fence between us,” she explained.

 

“Ohh, right,” Fitz laughed. “I guess I’m so used to seeing the world through that wire that I don’t often think about it these days.”

 

“Well, you look good without it. More like master of your own destiny.”

 

He didn’t quite know how to receive a compliment on his lack of fencing so he just focused on the task at hand.

 

“Can I help you carry those somewhere?” he asked, nodding toward the boxes. “I’m a couple of minutes early so I’ve got the time.”

 

Her smile somehow grew even warmer. “That’s so kind of you, Fitz,” she replied. “But they’re not heavy really, just a bit cumbersome. Maybe we could take one each?”

 

“Cumbersome,” he repeated, grinning at her. “What do you teach? Could it be English by any chance?”

 

She laughed and took up one of the boxes. “Yes, I’m an English teacher. Don’t other people use the word cumbersome? It’s such a good word! The world can only be poorer for the lack of it.”

 

“No, I agree! Honestly,” he replied, hoisting the second box out of the boot. “Lead on, then. I’ll follow.”

 

She reached up to slam the boot shut then walked into the school building through an entrance Fitz hadn’t yet had cause to use. He felt a bit disorientated so he just thought he’d blindly follow and focus on the opportunity to get to know her better.

 

“I’m always saying things that the lads think are pretentious but everything would be pretty dull if we only spoke in monosyllabic grunts.”

 

“As someone who spends all day every day with teenage boys, I can confirm that your hunch is correct,” she laughed, turning to enter a doorway to her left. “Welcome to my classroom.”

 

Fitz put down his box on a desk and stared around him, turning on the spot to take everything in. The room was a masterpiece of displays and sculptures, the walls covered in art works and quotes. “Wow,” he breathed, trying to take it all in. “I wish I’d been able to learn in classrooms like this at school. We just had bare brick walls and those cottage cheese ceilings.”

 

“Promise me you're not putting any of those ceilings in our new library,” she said sternly.

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it!” Fitz assured her. “Besides, I’m a slave to the master plan. No stamping of my personality on your school library. Nothing like this anyway.”

 

Jemma looked around thoughtfully. “I never thought of this as me stamping my personality on my room.”

 

“Show me next door,” Fitz suggested after a quick glance at the clock. It was still _just_ early enough. “Let’s see what it says about the personality who teaches in there.”

 

“Ok, then,” she said, heading out the door and fishing her keys from her pocket to open the neighbouring classroom.

 

“Ha! Now, that’s how I remember it,” Fitz exclaimed, walking into a classroom much like the one he’d described from his school years.

 

Looking determined, Jemma walked out and opened the next door along. Besides some variation in desk placement, the room was the same again.

 

Fitz followed her, grinning, in and out of three more classrooms along the same corridor.

 

“Yep, Jemma,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb of the last room she entered. “I think we can safely say that you’ve stamped your room with your personality and I’m sure that the students love you for it. It must be like walking into a museum or an art gallery or an aquarium or a theatre after being stuck in these brown boxes all the rest of the day.”

 

The look on her face as she turned her green eyes onto him was thoughtful. It lasted until his phone rang obnoxiously from his pocket. He only had to check the screen to see that it was Hunter wondering where he was.

 

“I better go, Jemma,” he said hurriedly. “Thanks for showing me your classroom! I’ll see you around?”

 

She smiled at him, following him out of the classroom and locking the door behind her. “I’m on duty at recess,” she called after him as he half jogged down the hallway. “Want me to smuggle you out a biscuit?”

 

Fitz laughed turning to jog backwards a moment. “Really?”

 

“Mmm!” she replied, eyebrows high. “I have dark chocolate wheatens in my desk drawer.”

 

“I wouldn’t say no,” he called back, grinning, and then turned and ran for the door.

 

The lads would _never_ let him hear the end of it if they caught her feeding him biscuits but it’s not like they were exactly going easy on him anyway.

 

Over the course of the week he’d learned when the bells went because it helped him know when he might anticipate her arrival. When the old guy or the large hat lady or the soccer guy appeared, he felt his heart sink a little, but those moments that he surreptitiously kept his eye on the door to see who would emerge were moments of precious burgeoning hope.

 

As his watch ticked over to ten past eleven he watched the entrance keenly. But when the first shoe appeared in the sunlight, it wasn’t the red pointy flat he’d noticed as he’d followed her to her classroom that morning. Rather it was the shiny black dress shoe of Phil Coulson, the principal.

 

His stomach grumbled as if anticipating the promised biscuits but he knew his disappointment ran deeper than that. He turned back to his work feeling grumpy and out-of-sorts.

 

It felt familiar, like normal. Like the days before he had ever met Jemma Simmons.


	4. Chapter 4

With the ups and downs of her work and the unpredictability of her love life, the one thing that kept Bobbi Morse sane was football.

 

She’d played soccer in high school and loved it, but coming back to it as an adult, with the teams of amazing women she managed to gather around her every season, it was pure joy.

 

Her favourite thing about this summer season was the new striker she’d managed to find. To look at her in her civvies, you wouldn’t be led to expect all that much, but once she donned her kit and hit the field she was speed and grace, screaming down the pitch, effortlessly scoring off her ever reliable right boot.

 

On top of that, Bobbi was learning that tightly-wound high school teachers could be a lot of fun when they broke loose and she enjoyed nothing more watching than Jemma’s celebratory whoops and backflips when she scored, which seemed to be happening a lot.

 

On Wednesday night, after training, with her face all sweaty and her hair a mess, Jemma had seemed especially loose and free.

 

“What’s new with you, girl?” Bobbi asked. “You seem a bit, I don’t know, _giddy_ tonight.”

 

Jemma giggled, flopping down on the grass. “Oh, Bobbi, it’s pathetic but I _do_ feel a bit giddy.”

 

“Spill.”

 

Jemma’s flushed face grew even redder and she threw one arm over her face as she spoke. “I have clearly been single too long and I never have the chance to meet men so yesterday when the work began on our new school library, of course I developed a desperate attraction to the site engineer.”

 

“Ooh, fun! Tell me about him!”

 

“Well, it’s terribly awkward because of course none of us are supposed to be talking to the builders. Or at least, the students aren’t supposed to be and I assume that means I’m to set the example.”

 

“And yet you did anyway because you’re such a badass?”

 

It had taken Jemma a while to stop laughing. “Oh, that is _so_ far from the truth!” she exclaimed. “One of the primary school boys lost his hat over the fence into the construction site and I had to ask one of the builders to fetch it back for him while he sobbed his little heart out beside me.”

 

“So, not so much badass as Miss Honey from _Matilda_.”

 

Jemma hadn’t heard, lost as she was in recalling the particulars. “He has these incredibly blue eyes and an amazing Scottish accent...”

 

She had gone on dreamily for some time but Bobbi had suddenly stopped paying attention.

 

It didn’t take a super spy to make the connection. She had laughed along with her friend while mentally making a note to get in touch with her ex and find out what his crew were up to these days. She had an inkling that she might just happen to know of a blue-eyed Scottish site engineer who would almost definitely appeal to someone like Jemma. As it happened, she felt fairly confident that the feeling would be mutual. And she had meaning to get in contact with Hunter anyway. They were about due another go around.

 

That Friday afternoon when Bobbi sent the text around to her team confirming the match details for the evening, she added to Jemma as an afterthought:

 

_Any engineering developments?_

 

It took almost no time at all for her to hear back.

 

_He makes me feel like maybe there are some things I’m actually getting right as a teacher after all but then I promised him biscuits and couldn’t deliver._

 

Bobbi chuckled to herself at the way Jemma had punctuated her text, first with heart-eyes and then the weeping emoji. She’d initially intended to leave it another week before swinging her plan into action but it looked like there was absolutely no reason to delay.

 

…

 

Hunter, the foreman and Fitz’s best mate, was the first to mention Jemma to him without the teasing undertone. “Fitz, mate,” he said as they loaded their toolboxes in the beds of their parallel trucks on Friday afternoon, “I think that teacher girl likes you, you know.”

 

Due to his disappointment over not seeing Jemma at recess, Fitz entirely failed to notice the absence of the usual riling humour in his friend’s voice. He responded with his traditional, “Shut up, Hunter.”

 

“All right, mate.” Hunter put his hands up placating. “I’m not going to push it. But we need to get you out, I think. What are you up to this weekend?”

 

“Just our game on Sunday,” Fitz replied. “Not much else.”

 

“Come and watch Bob’s match with me tonight, eh?” Hunter urged. “We’ll go out for a few drinks after.”

 

“The six-a-side women’s outdoor comp?” Fitz asked. “Bobbi’s still playing in that? Good for her!”

 

“She practically runs it, mate. She’s manager of her team. And oooh, if she were here - the punch on the arm you would have just been granted for sounding so condescending.”

 

Just the thought of it caused both men to wince and rub at their biceps.

 

“You’re risking it, I notice,” Fitz observes wryly. “You two moving back into an on-again patch?”

 

Hunter shrugged. “With Bobbi, I don’t ask questions. I just turn up when she summons me and if she grabs me and kisses me at any point, I assume we’re on until it seems we’re not again.”

 

“Yeah, alright. Let’s go and watch,” Fitz agreed. “Could be good to take my mind off… err…”

 

“Off what?” Hunter asked innocently, eyes wide.

 

“Shut up, Hunter.”

 

“Kick-off is at seven-thirty. Pick you up at seven and we can get a kebab and a couple of pints on the way?”

 

“Perfect.”


	5. Chapter 5

Though Fitz wouldn’t have said it out loud, Hunter had been right about his need to get out. It felt good to head back to his flat and shower off the building dust with the purpose of actually interacting with human beings rather than just collapsing into bed to watch TV.

 

He shrugged on a navy t-shirt and jeans and ran his fingers through his damp hair just in time to hear Hunter honking from below.

 

The kebab, though not perhaps the most model combination of food groups, tasted far better than any of the pre-fab food Fitz had added water to that week and, aided by the pints, he and Hunter had plenty to groan about when it came to their own football team.

 

“Any last ditch efforts we can make to have a hope for the game this week?” Hunter asked.

 

“What, like new strategies to get that bloody Deke to even mildly play his actual position?”

 

“That, or ideas on how to stop Reyes from utterly losing his mind and getting red-carded for a change?”

 

Fitz laughed. “We’re a hopeless bunch of mouth-breathers, aren’t we?”

 

“Not you, mate. You’re romping through the best season I’ve seen you have.”

 

Fitz dropped his head bashfully.

 

Hunter shrugged. “Credit where credit’s due.”

 

“Thanks, mate,” he replied, scratching at the back of his neck. “But it definitely helps me keep the goals out when not a single player in our entire league has got any skill to speak of.”

 

“Too right, mate.” Hunter shook his head sadly. “Bob says she has an amazing striker this season. Their team is absolutely blitzing the table!”

 

“Well, that’ll be fun to watch tonight given that we never get to see any of that in the men’s’ games.”

 

“Exactly,” said Hunter, shoving the last quarter of his kebab into his mouth, downing the dregs of his beer and pushing back his chair. “So let’s go!”

 

They pulled up at the field just after kick off and sauntered over to plonk themselves on the hill overlooking the pitch. They were close enough to recognise Bobbi’s statuesque form leading the backs but the rest of the players were just jerseys with legs.

 

It didn’t take them long at all to see that Bobbi was right about her striker. Fitz and Hunter cheered and clapped her back-flips and whirling aeroplane arm celebrations and jokingly plotted how they could pass her off as a man like the flimsy plot of that dreadful Shakespeare adaptation with Channing Tatum that somehow both of them had seen enough times to have fixed opinions about.

 

They kept their distance at half-time seeing that the score was close and the girls were in an intense huddle plotting how to maintain their tight lead.

 

Fitz enjoyed watching Bobbi in her element in defence. The team looked to her for leadership just like his team looked to Mack, solid and dependable, reading the play, reliably feeding the ball forward with a magnificent kick. One such moment saw Bobbi place a glorious ball to the midfielders who shepherded it expertly to the striker. She took it and broke into a sprint, cheetah-like with the ball unstealable at her feet. She shot forward then booted a ball that curved into the top corner before the keeper could so much as get a hand to it. The girls ran to embrace their whooping striker, dancing and high-fiving.

 

Fitz silently commiserated with the opposing keeper but recognised in her posture the battered honour of having come up against an opponent against whom few would prove worthy. He looked forward to shaking this striker’s hand at the conclusion of the match.

 

When the full-time whistle finally blew, Bobbi’s team was up by a whole four goals. Hunter and Fitz, caught up in the excitement, sprinted down onto the pitch firing high fives and fist bumps at Bobbi and every other girl on her team.

 

“You were _incredible_!” Fitz turned to rave at the striker just as she pulled her hoodie over her head, holding out his hand to shake hers when she eventually reappeared. “Amazing game. I’m a keeper and I don’t think I could have stopped a single thing that came off your boot! Hunter and I have spent the whole match plotting to steal you for the men’s comp.”

 

She emerged from the neck of the hoodie and pushed her hair back from her face.

 

The striker was, somehow, inexplicably, bafflingly, _Jemma Simmons_.

 

“Fitz?” she said, grinning. “Was that you yelling incoherent nonsense from the hill? What on earth are you doing at our game?”

 

Fitz looked stunned and turned open-mouthed towards Hunter whom his brain was telling him would have to bear responsibility.

 

Hunter was already looking suspiciously towards Bobbi.

 

And then Bobbi grabbed Hunter and kissed him, starting that hamster wheel of drama all over again and leaving Fitz all on his own to sort through his bewilderment.


	6. Chapter 6

Jemma had been desperate for an outlet for her stress, a break from her all-consuming work and a distraction from the overwhelm that dogged her every move in her beginning years of teaching. She had found far more than she could have hoped for when she’d called the number in the local paper advertising an all-age ladies six-a-side outdoor football comp.

 

Bobbi was formidable and fun. Elena was determined and doggedly loyal. Daisy was powerful and irreverent. Piper was pure enthusiasm. May was untouchable yet somehow simultaneously motherly (not that anyone would have dared tell her that).

 

The six of them had bonded immediately, chatting for hours after their Wednesday night training sessions, going for compulsory drinks after Friday night matches and spending at least one other evening together every week, seeing movies, going out for dinner or crashing at one another’s places for Netflix binges of whichever show they’d formed a mutual obsession over.

 

It was the community of friends that Jemma had always longed for and as a result she would forever be thankful to her parents and her brothers for seeing her potential in the sport and encouraging her to develop it throughout her childhood. It meant she could really bring something of value to this crowd of women, not that they wouldn’t have loved her anyway, even if she were only a passable player.

 

As for the goals themselves – simple geometry. Yes, she may have chosen to teach English but that didn’t preclude her enjoying calculating a radius for the curve on the ball while pelting down the pitch. And her teammates, though perhaps not well-versed in the _theoretical_ applications of geometry, seemed to simply embody it. They were maths in practice and poetry in motion. _And_ as a team they were unbeatable.

 

They rarely ever had people come to watch their matches. As six busy, single women holding down demanding jobs, it had never seemed a priority to gather a cheer squad and besides, they were doing just fine without one. The two strange men who’d been yelling good-natured, if nonsensical, encouragement from the hill the whole night turned out to be Fitz and his foreman. Her first surprised instinct had been to assume that Fitz was there to see her. Why else would he have come? She _had_ thought about inviting him to come and watch when he’d asked what she liked to do on the weekend but that conversation had been interrupted. Was this a telepathic thing? Or was Fitz some kind of stalker? But when Bobbi grabbed the _other_ guy, rendering his explanation for their presence both impossible and unnecessary, Jemma realised that it must have been pure coincidence. That thought process completed, she was better able to take in Fitz’s adorable, utter astonishment and the potential inherent therein.

 

“Ahh, so _that’s_ why you’re here,” said Jemma, nodding in the direction of Bobbi and Hunter who appeared to have _really_ missed each other in the interim. “I never would have guessed you knew Bobbi or that you worked with her ex…” She looked from the snogging pair back to Fitz uncertainly. “Though, um, perhaps the term “ex” requires some revision given current events?”

 

Fitz shrugged. “If it isn’t correct tonight, it won’t be long before it is again.”

 

Hunter broke away from Bobbi just long enough to look at his friend and say, “Hurtful,” before she grabbed him once more.

 

Daisy wandered over to where Jemma and Fitz were standing with the other team members behind her. “So, it looks like it’s up to you to do the introductions, Simmons.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “These two will get us nowhere.”

 

“Err, right,” said Jemma. “Well, Daisy, Elena, May, Piper, this is Fitz, who apparently doesn’t have another name. A bit like Cher, I suppose.”

 

Fitz smirked at Jemma over the laughter of her teammates, enjoying the way she grinned boldly back at him. He liked her _a lot_ at school but he felt even more inclined to like her now that he could see her so relaxed and at home amongst her friends. The blazing skill on the pitch was icing on the cake.

 

“I guess you’ll be joining us for celebratory drinks then, Fitz?” Piper asked.

 

“Well, I’m keen,” Fitz replied, “and you absolutely deserve to be celebrated but,” he cast another glance towards Hunter, “I have a feeling my ride isn’t going to be all that reliable.”

 

“I’ll give you a lift!” Jemma practically shouted, much to the undisguised amusement of her teammates.

 

Fitz felt simultaneously gratified and sympathetic. If his crew and her teammates got together he’d be half-expecting an immediate bleacher-clambering song-and-dance number like something straight out of _Grease_.

 

In the flurry of boot gathering and bag packing that ensued, Hunter and Bobbi had snuck off somewhere.

 

Daisy sidled up to Fitz as he followed Jemma to her car. “I think your wingman has deserted you,” she whispered. “But just say the word and any of the rest of us are willing to step in.”

 

Fitz laughed uneasily, unsure whether to confirm or deny her insinuations. “What’s the word?”

 

“Man-U,” Daisy whispered with a leering wink, stopping Fitz short just before she ran off to jump in a car with Elena.

 

Had Jemma told her teammates about that embarrassing moment with his _underpants_?

 

He glanced at Jemma walking just ahead of him and decided for his own sanity to conclude that it was merely another coincidence. There was nothing _that_ unusual about a footballer naming a famous football team to another football player shortly after the conclusion of a football match.

 

“Here we are,” Jemma chirped, pressing at the button on her key ring that set her little hatchback’s lights flashing.

 

The moon must have been in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars. That was as much as he was prepared to allow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> math/maths - for some reason we like our abbreviation plural in #straya and in Simmons' homeland, the Mother Country.
> 
> Thanks for all the nice things you've been saying. Glad you're liking this. Gee whiz, it is fun to write!


	7. Chapter 7

Dropping himself into the passenger seat of Jemma’s compact car, Fitz wondered, with no small amount of trepidation, how much of the burden of conversation would fall to him.

 

Busying herself beside him with keys and ignitions and headlights and indicators, Jemma started the car only to have the brief silence between them shattered by the iconic opening riff of Lenny Kravitz’s _Are You Gonna Go My Way_ , the volume cranked well past eleven.

 

They both jumped a foot, looked in the direction of the other, a hand clasped over their heaving chests, and pursued their only natural option: vigorous nodding of their heads to the beat, top teeth over bottom lip.

 

“It’s my pre-match psych-up play list!” Jemma shouted over the music, reaching her hand towards the knob.

 

“Don’t turn it down!” Fitz shouted back. “This is a classic!”

 

Jemma shrugged, put her hand back on the wheel and laughed along with Fitz as they discovered that they both knew every single word. The pub wasn’t far away so though they only got through that and some of Guns N’ Roses _Sweet Child O’ Mine_ , Fitz didn’t feel a moment’s need to dwell on the burden of making conversation again.

 

The General Leia Organa was a dingy looking bar from the outside, presumably chosen for its proximity to the football field alone but, on closer inspection once inside, Fitz could see its appeal to his drinking companions. The walls were plastered with floor to ceiling images of the greatest women history and pop culture had produced. Beneath large portraits of Frida Kahlo, Sojourner Truth and J.K. Rowling the team was huddled around a table already supplied with frosty glasses, half-full.

 

Noticing the giant pizzas being delivered to the table, Fitz’s kebab felt like a meal he ate yesterday. “I’m guessing it’s dumb to assume there’ll be pizza going spare,” he observed as they stood at the bar and watched Jemma’s teammates descend upon them.

 

“I’ve made that mistake before and gone hungry,” said Jemma. “We seem to order what we think is an extravagant amount of food only to find ourselves needing to go back for more.”

 

“I’m always ravenous post-game,” agreed Fitz. “But I feel just as hungry now and I was only a spectator!”

 

“Another couple of pizzas then?”

 

“Nah, let’s get three. My shout. Save the others from having to call the waiter over for a few more minutes.”

 

Jemma grinned at him. “I think they’re going to like you.”

 

“Go sit,” he said, waving her towards her friends. “What are you drinking?”

 

“Same as them,” she called back as she made her way over.

 

If the huddle of red-faced, sweaty-haired women had looked a little intimidating on their arrival, it was nothing to how it looked by the time Fitz was approaching with a tray of six pints. The offering seemed to more than compensate for his intrusion and when, to explain, he said, “We’ll never get to play you, but I suspect you’d trounce us so see these as the celebratory beers I would have owed you if we played in a mixed comp,” he was welcomed as warmly as if he were one of their own, and doubly when the fresh pizzas arrived.

 

“So that guy Bobbi left with must have been Hunter, right?” said the one who’d winked at him through a mouthful of pizza.

 

“Err, yeah. I should have seen that coming, I guess,” he said. “They’re about due to make another humiliating public scene.”

 

Piper looked at him askance. “Did you find it humiliating at the field earlier?”

 

Fitz laughed. “No! Not that! That I’m used to. I meant the inevitable break up that follows.”

 

“Bobbi did make it sound like they’ve been on-and-off for a while,” said Elena. “How long are we talking?”

 

“A few years, didn’t she say?” Jemma replied. “Is that right, Fitz?”

 

He shrugged. “Hunter and I have been mates for a decade. He and Bobbi have been a thing for a lot longer than that. Anyway, it’s much better now than when they used to live together. He spent a lot of nights on my couch in those days.”

 

“What about you, Fitz?” Daisy asked, her grin wolfish. “No significant other?”

 

Fitz felt himself going red and studiously avoided meeting Jemma’s eye. “Err, no. Nothing really.”

 

“Not for the last decade? Sounds like Hunter is really getting in the way of your progress with the ladies.”

 

“Huh, yeah, maybe,” he muttered, feeling the flush climbing up his neck. “I don’t know. Just a bit chronically single, I guess.”

 

Daisy’s grin grew even more predatory. “We know someone else a bit like that, don’t we?” She glanced around the table.

 

Fitz didn’t quite know where to look.

 

Suddenly May spoke up from the corner, her voice no-nonsense. “All of us, Daisy. We’re all chronically single. Yourself included.” The _leave-him-alone_ was implied.

 

Daisy sank back into her seat chastened.

 

Elena didn’t allow a beat to pass. “So your team’s not having a great season?” she asked sympathetically.

 

Fitz took a long sip of his beer, willing the chill of the liquid to wash away some of the red. “We’re not great, no.” He thought again. “I think we’re all ok players individually. Maybe it’s just that we can’t get it together as a team, as hard as Mack works to get us to. Not like you guys anyway. You moved as one tonight.”

 

He found himself the recipient of four beaming smiles and one slightly raised corner of the lip which was the equivalent thereof from May.

 

“Maybe we could help you out?” Elena offered sincerely. “After all, we’re all playing in the same region.”

 

Fitz nodded, unable to think of any way they could possibly help but equally unable to turn down any opportunity for more time with Jemma.

 

Daisy looked intrigued. “Tell us about your team, Fitz.”

 

All eyes were on him. “Well, there’s Hunter, who you know.”

 

“We know him by his kissing technique alone,” Daisy pointed out. “Which does award points in his favour, and Bob obviously seems to like him.”

 

“Some of the time,” added Jemma.

 

Fitz chuckled. “Hunter’s my best mate. I equal parts love him and want to kill him and we work together every day so that’s simultaneously great and terrible.”

 

His audience laughed appreciatively and he warmed to his subject. “Truthfully, Hunter’s at his most likeable in the early weeks, or months if he’s lucky, of just getting back together with Bobbi. They really do love each other, you know. I think they just get scared when they each start thinking they’re losing their independence. They arc up and start arguing but anyone with eyes can see that they’re pushing each other away because they’re too scared to let themselves be vulnerable with one another.”

 

“Wow. Have you ever said that to them?” Piper asked. “It sounds really insightful. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve been watching something like this unfold for a whole decade.”

 

Daisy thwacked Piper on the arm. “Stop making him dwell on the taken one. I want to hear about the other possibly-not-taken men on this team.”

 

 

...

**Author's Note:**

> Recess? Lunch? What do you call those breaks in the rest of the world? What else have I said that baffled you? No doubt plenty... By way of explanation I say G'day from #straya


End file.
